Adjust a Participant's Round

Contest days rarely go exactly to plan. A team’s computer loses power in the middle of the contest. A lab receives its credentials twenty minutes after everyone else. A team is held up at the gate while the contest begins without them.

The fair thing to do is to give the affected team back the time they lost. Until now, that meant extending the contest for everyone and then cutting each team off by hand as it reached the end of its own round.

Today, we are introducing participant rounds. Contest organizers can now give a participant a late start or extra time, and Toph takes care of the rest.

A Round for Each Participant

Every participant’s round is the contest’s round by default. When something goes wrong for one team, an organizer can adjust that team’s round from the participant’s page in the Contest Console:

• Start delay: The team’s round begins this many minutes after the contest starts. The team still gets the contest’s full duration.
• Extra time: These minutes are added to the team’s round. A negative value shortens it.
• Reason: A short explanation of why the round was adjusted. It is required.

A team that lost power for fifteen minutes can be given fifteen minutes of extra time. A team that received its credentials late can be given a start delay matching how late they were.

The Contest Accommodates the Rest

Once a round is adjusted, Toph handles everything that used to be manual:

• The contest extends only as far as it needs to. The contest’s end moves to fit the latest-ending round, and the contest page shows the difference alongside the duration, as in “5 hours + 20 minutes”. Everyone else still finishes at the regular time.
• Each team’s submissions close at the end of its own round. There is no need to block anyone or watch the clock for them.
• Penalty counts from each team’s own start. A team that started late is not penalized for the minutes it could not use.
• The freeze stays on the regular schedule. The standings freeze at the same moment for everyone and stay frozen until the final standings are revealed.

Transparent by Design

A change to a team’s round is a change to the competition. We have built this feature so that no such change goes unseen.

Every adjustment needs a reason. Toph does not let an organizer adjust a round without explaining why. The reason is shown to the team in the arena and to everyone on the standings, and the change is recorded in the contest’s logs along with who made it.

Adjusted rows are marked on the standings. A team whose round was adjusted has an asterisk (*) next to its penalty, on the public standings, in the contest arena, and in the Contest Console. Hover over the asterisk to see the adjustment and its reason, such as “Started 18 minutes late: Credentials were handed out late.”

Participants, coaches, and spectators can see exactly which teams were given different rounds, by how much, and why.

What Participants See

If your round starts or ends at a different time than the contest’s, the arena sidebar shows Your round with a countdown of your own. Click the ⓘ beside it to see when your round started, any extra or reduced time, the reason for the adjustment, and whether the contest continues after your round ends.

When your round ends, the arena lets you know and submissions close for your team. You can keep following the standings while other teams finish.

Keeping Track as an Organizer

On the participants list in the Contest Console, adjusted teams carry a small label, such as “20m late” or “+15m”. Use the Time adjusted filter to list only those teams.

To undo an adjustment, open the participant’s round again and click Clear. The contest’s end moves back to fit the remaining adjustments.

See Adjust a Participant’s Round in Toph Help for step-by-step instructions.

If you have any questions or need assistance, please don’t hesitate to contact Toph support or join the conversation in our community forum.